Courses and Workshops

Tuesday, Starts June 5

Who we are as conscious living beings and how we relate to the rest of what we call reality is the greatest mystery in science. And how we frame our approaches to and hypotheses about this mystery profoundly impacts our behavior in the world. This course will address the known and the unknown in the evolving science of consciousness, surveying material from biophysical neuroscience, history and philosophy of science, the ongoing dialogue between Buddhism and science, and conversation between science and humanities more generally.

The Beatles are the most famous rock group in history. The reasons for this are musical as well as cultural and we will look at the two elements simultaneously. Their middle period songs from 1965-67 will be studied, with analysis of the musical and lyrical content and structural elements. What musical styles do the songs address? What were their musical influences? In what ways did their music change over the years? Why were the Beatles so popular and influential?

Wednesday, Starts June 6

Some argue that 1959 was the “greatest year in jazz” due to the number of groundbreaking albums made that year. This four-week course will discuss six of the most significant albums of 1959: Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue,” Dave Brubeck’s “Time Out,” Charles Mingus’ “Ah Um,” John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps,” Ornette Coleman’s “Shape of Jazz to Come” and Bill Evans’ “Portrait in Jazz.” We will examine what makes each of these recordings so unique in their sound, style and contributions to the music world.

Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth depict rich visions of womanhood at the beginning of the twentieth century. Set in radically different places—one in the black deep south and the other in New York society—and portraying fictional lives that would seem to have very little in common, these two novels nonetheless function as a kind of dialogue on the limits and possibilities available to women in this historical period. Hurston’s Janie Starks and Wharton’s Lily Bart, two of the most extraordinary women in American fiction, face their own kinds of oppression, yet both desire meaning and expression beyond the restrictions placed on them as women.

Fundamental to Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 election was the migration of the Republican Party’s right-wing populist base from the Tea Party to Trump’s anti-immigrant nationalism. This course analyzes the Tea Party’s strengths and its internal tensions. Trump’s presidential campaign and his administration successfully mined those tensions. Understanding the Trump movement and the alt-right will involve looking at the nature and varieties of populism and the circumstances—economic and cultural—that galvanized his base of support. We will also consider the Republican establishment’s movement from opposition to accommodation to Trump, his politics, and his style.

Thursday, Starts June 7

Discover how to turn your snapshots into extraordinary photographs using your iPhone. Learn how to expertly capture images, edit and create photographs using solely your iPhone, gain inspiration to find your creative vision, and expand your technical knowledge. By the end of this workshop, you will have answers to your questions about the ins and outs of photography with your iPhone.

When most of us were growing up, animation meant Disney, or Saturday mornings and super heroes. What swirled around us, barely noticed, were the brilliant international studios, and our own rich history of silent and avant-garde cartoons. In this course, we will be making up for lost time. We re-visit our best-known animation studios during their golden age: Disney, Fleischer, Warner Brothers, and UPA. But we'll be particularly interested in the alternatives to the American juggernaut, analyzing animation from Canada, Europe, Eastern Europe, Russia, and Japan, and look at how new forms of animation – including digital – have responded to both political and artistic demands of avant-garde movements.

Discover how to turn your snapshots into extraordinary photographs using your iPhone. Learn how to expertly capture images, edit and create photographs using solely your iPhone, gain inspiration to find your creative vision, and expand your technical knowledge. By the end of this workshop, you will have answers to your questions about the ins and outs of photography with your iPhone.

Monday, Starts April 2

Prepare your body, brain, and voice to sing with ease, expressiveness, and projection. Learn four traditional rounds and five part-songs by ear, plus choral skills such as legato, staccato, fermata, ritard, timbre, and head and chest voice. More experienced participants may sing in trios or anchor their sections. We will perform for invited guests during the last class. All levels welcome.

The cloud of nuclear conflict has shifted from the steppes of Russia to the smaller countries of Iran and North Korea with few good options in hand. The practice of Nuclear Arms Control can offer us some needed solutions; participants will learn about its history, organization, and uses. No prior historical or scientific knowledge is required. Past treaties and confidence-building measures will demonstrate the means and advantages of limiting arms between nations. The detailed political mechanics of arms control regimes in the US will reveal the complexity of arms control implementation. Lastly, the science and technology of identifying nuclear warheads will point to new directions for future nuclear weapons limitation agreements.

Explore the experience of “awakening” to new understandings of the world and our place in it. Awakenings can shake us loose from assumptions and lead to profound and challenging shifts in our relationships, personal stories, and values.

Investigate the activities of nerve cells and how drugs or disease alter their functioning. Discuss neuronal networks that serve major mechanisms, such as vision and sleep, and changes in the brain that impair memory functions. Each lecture will include a basic neuroscience topic and related clinical concepts. This course will contain both new and familiar topics from Ralston’s previous classes.

Tuesday, Starts April 3

Uncover potent moments from your past through the basic elements of memoir: sensory detail, scene versus summary, dialogue, time shifts, tension, and voice. Read great memoirists to get started. Do in-class exercises and work with peers. Hand in weekly pages for comprehensive instructor feedback. Leave the class with a body of writing.

The myths and rituals of traditional cultures can give us surprising new insights into the stories, ideas, and practices of modern life. This thought-provoking exploration of the deeper dimensions of science, society, and culture will focus on understanding the equivalents at work in our lives, such as the Idea of Progress and the American Dream. Recover their power to awaken a renewed sense of personal meaning and fulfillment.

Take a cultural and musical journey through the lives and careers of six legendary rock and R&B singers: the “Genius” Ray Charles; the “King of Soul” Sam Cooke; the “Voice” Roy Orbison; the “Big O” Otis Redding; the “Queen of Soul” Aretha Franklin; and Dusty Springfield. Explore these musical giants through lectures, photographs, recorded and live music, film clips, and question-and-answer sessions.

People who experience and practice gratitude cope better with stress and enjoy more robust physical health. Based on “The Science of Happiness,” a globally popular class taught by Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, this course will use articles, video, and discussion to help you develop gratitude practices and explore the challenges of consistency. Note: This course blends online and in-person learning.

As we age, how can we uncover and integrate the wisdom we have gained while continuing to grow and change? In this experiential class, we will use mindfulness and grounding practices to cultivate presence and shift from a fixed to a growth mindset. We will also explore resilience and flexibility by embracing opposites, such as giving and receiving, holding on and letting go, and solitude and connection. For new and returning students.

Long before Leonard Cohen gained fame as a singer, he was a prize-winning poet and budding novelist. He was deeply influenced by Judaism, Catholicism, and Buddhism, and drew on diverse cultural references in songs of love, conflict, war and peace, and the vagaries of belief. Look beyond his triumphant “Hallelujah” as we explore a 60-year career and the inspirations behind his provocative, erotic, and often dark lyrics.

Cover major aspects of Bach’s instrumental and vocal music. Discuss the principles of historically informed performance practice in relation to modern and period instrument performances. Discover his musical influences as we work our way through the cantatas and Passions, instrumental music, and final masterpieces — B Minor Mass, Goldberg Variations, and the Art of the Fugue.

This course will completely change the way you experience movies. It will open a door to a new dimension in understanding films — the use of sound. While there is a high degree of visual sophistication in audiences, there is an almost equal naiveté when it comes to sound. We will consider dialogue, music, and effects from the perspectives of the writer, director, and audience, looking at the artistic and technical factors that guide the use of sound, and how they affect the viewer. Examples will be shown from foreign and domestic feature, documentary, and animated films.

Wednesday, Starts April 4

Examine the ways in which the British Romantics’ view of nature gave way to more contemporary, but perhaps less idealized ways of engaging with both the natural world and the urban city. Poets may include John Keats, William Wordsworth, Robert Frost, T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, Allen Ginsberg, Elizabeth Bishop, Seamus Heaney, Mary Oliver, and Billy Collins.

Review about 10 undecided cases now pending in the U.S. Supreme Court. Is there an exemption to anti-discrimination laws when they conflict with religious beliefs? Does gerrymandering congressional districts for political advantage violate the constitution? Can California require all pregnancy assistance centers to post information about free abortions at other facilities? Does a suspected undocumented immigrant held in custody for years awaiting a hearing have the right to release on bail? No legal experience required; Krause will provide basic information and research guidance.

The Adamses are arguably our most powerful dynasty, exercising influence over American affairs for almost two centuries. They were brilliant, learned, and witty, yet often abrasive, arrogant, and grandiose. Trace the tumultuous and controversial careers of this remarkable clan, from John and Abigail — America’s first power couple — to John Quincy, the child prodigy who followed in his father’s footsteps, diplomat Charles Francis, and Henry, the brilliant historian and journalist.

Review about 10 undecided cases now pending in the U.S. Supreme Court. Is there an exemption to anti-discrimination laws when they conflict with religious beliefs? Does gerrymandering congressional districts for political advantage violate the constitution? Can California require all pregnancy assistance centers to post information about free abortions at other facilities? Does a suspected undocumented immigrant held in custody for years awaiting a hearing have the right to release on bail? No legal experience required; Krause will provide basic information and research guidance. This course will cover the same topics as the morning class (see above), but with advanced discussion and greater class participation.

Examine contemporary works of prose, fiction, poetry, cinema, and music by or about Italian Jews during the 20th century, focusing on Jewish intellectuals under the fascist regime between the two World Wars. With the exception of Giorgio Bassani, we will concentrate on authors from the city of Turin — Natalia Ginzburg, Carlo Levi, Primo Levi, and Vittorio Dan Segre — and on film and music based on their works.

Richard Wagner’s monumental four-opera cycle, The Ring of the Nibelung, will be performed at San Francisco Opera in June. Examine its long creative process and transformative operatic journey through a world unhinged by corruption, politics, greed, and neglect, where the one true power is the redeeming force of love. Discover how Wagner weaves this potent cautionary tale about the end of the world and the birth of a new order. All levels welcome.

Thursday, Starts April 5

British playwright Caryl Churchill is known for dramatizing the abuses of power, her surrealistic style, and exploration of feminist themes. We will read and discuss five plays — Cloud Nine, Top Girls, Mad Forest, Far Away, and Here We Go/Escaped Alone.

The view from abroad is revealing, refreshing, and occasionally jarring. View six films — most of which have never been screened in the United States — and discuss their aims, strategies, choices, and ethics. Examine perennial issues of nonfiction filmmaking, such as point of view, journalism versus activism, truth versus representation, the imperatives and conventions of narrative (i.e., storytelling), and aesthetic choices.

Discover key women architects who have overcome a male-dominated industry and produced groundbreaking work, including Julia Morgan, Anne Fougeron, Kayuzo Sejima, Charlotte Perriand, and Mary Ann Schicketanz. Learn about their sensibilities in dealing with design problems, their cultural referents, what makes their work distinctive, and how they see themselves in the world of modern and contemporary architecture.

“The past is never dead,” wrote William Faulkner. “It’s not even past.” Applying that to current controversies, should Confederate monuments be taken down? Should university buildings be renamed? Is it unpatriotic to protest the national anthem at sporting events? Today’s culture wars over monuments, symbols, and rituals are part of our living history and reflect the country’s deep political divide. We will discuss how institutions should handle bitterly contested issues and consider a current controversy in Berkeley.

Delve deeper into memoir by exploring theme, structure, suspense, and point of view. Each class will include lectures, readings, in-class exercises, and small-group work. Find the right balance between storytelling and disclosure. Compose impromptu pieces and receive feedback. We will begin with a renewed focus on scenes and end with tips for revision. This course follows up on themes introduced in previous terms.

As democracy is under threat around the globe, this course will examine how history’s leading republics maintained distributed power. We will focus on Venice, history’s longest-lasting republic; the more democratic Florentine Republic; the Dutch Republic, which fostered that nation’s Golden Age; and Britain’s parliamentary system enshrining separation of powers. We will also examine the first three French Republics and the Founders’ crafting of the American constitution. Consider what measures may be required to safeguard democracy today.

Starting with the political crisis of 1968, this course will encompass Mexico’s political economy, as well as trends in its popular culture, social structure, notions of femininity and masculinity, family, religion, the arts, literature, cinema, and music. Topics will include the Mexican drug trade, NAFTA, tourism, the importance of the oil/gas industry, and immigration. We will also discuss the Mexican general elections of July 2018 in light of U.S.-Mexico relations under the Trump administration.

Examine historical and contemporary textile traditions from around the world. Look at the symbolism, cultural context, and techniques used in creating traditional textiles, as well as their role in today’s economy. We will focus on the textiles of Latin America, Africa, and Asia and study examples from Kelly’s collection as well as your collections.

Friday, Starts April 6

The graphic memoir is situated between literature and film. As exemplified by Art Spiegelman’s Maus, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, and Roz Chast’s Can We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, the combination of images and words strengthens and magnifies all the truths of our lives.

Learn the basics of watercolor. We will cover the principles of color theory, color mixing, paint layering, and texture through still life, landscapes, wildlife, and more. Whether you are new to watercolor or are familiar with the medium, this class is open to all levels. Basic drawing skills are suggested but not required — open to all levels. Course fee does not include materials (approximately $70).

Learn the basics of watercolor. We will cover the principles of color theory, color mixing, paint layering, and texture through still life, landscapes, wildlife, and more. Whether you are new to watercolor or are familiar with the medium, this class is open to all levels. Basic drawing skills are suggested but not required — open to all levels. Course fee does not include materials (approximately $70).